Essay on "La Haine"

(My essay is written on La Haine as i wasnt present in class when we watched the film Persepolis)

How does "La Haine" represent political and social messages?

La Haine is set in the suburbs of France in a less glamouris area  which is normally presented to the audience whenever the country is used for a film- and central france stars in many romantic films. La Haine certainly isnt one of them and is a film that shows violence, anger and fustration of three young men stuck in the suburbs.

La Haine is certainly a good example of political messages within films, the whole motivation of the film is based around the riots in France in which one of their closest friends die- this sparks the group to rebel and cause trouble such as in the scene where they are swearing at the media. Another example of this is the fact that the city is run by some form of enforcement, although the majority of these people are rogue as we see in the end scene, when he ends up dying as a result of this. Through-out the whole film there is only one person who tries to help, but even he isnt that interested in their lives he is just trying to make his own job easier- this is showing both the lack of control that the police and government have control over these youths, others like them and the people rebeling in france, especially seeing as it is result in the death of young people.

There are a number of social messages in La Haine such as the interactions between the characters, their age difference, ethnicity etc. For example every single one of the main three characters are from a different ethnic background and also from different religions- although the characters still bond together and shown as three good friends, it shows that prehaps the problems arent the people within the suburbs but the way they are treated and represented which links back to the political messages.